


to ashes we return

by Kyhariel



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 16:41:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13194252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyhariel/pseuds/Kyhariel
Summary: A warlock tries to cope with the loss of their subclass and takes advice from a questionable authority to search out even more questionable help.





	to ashes we return

**Author's Note:**

> Like half of this is headcanons, sorry in advance.

It hurts.  
The cold hurts.  
The void rips at their being, gnaws at their self, eats them and spits them out as a shell of their former self. They stared into their nova bomb, watching it tear through their enemies and it stares back. It is hungry.  
They don’t call on the void again after that.  
The arc is bearable, it fills them with power ready at their fingertips, but that power is unlike the solar they were used to.  
It is cool to the touch, charged and ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice, but it still felt so wrong, the trance alien and without full control of themselves.  
It was nothing like the light they once wielded, the radiance they once held.  
They didn’t even want to think about the sword, the destruction it’s fire brought.  
It burned everything in its path, merciless and so, so angry.  
They had been a being of burning solar light for most of their second life as a guardian, a beacon of hope, but the dawnblade was a fury unimaginable and it hurt them to hold the sword.

After the first time, after they received their light back from the shard, after the blade had vanished again and the fire inside them coiled like a snake in their belly, ready to strike again, they pulled off their gloves, hands hurting from clenching the grip of the sword.  
Their fingers were burned, charred black at their tips.  
They sunk to their knees and mourned the loss of the song.

They avoided calling the sword again.  
Sure, on Earth it was easy enough to get by without it, completing the various errands Hawthorne had them run without the need for engulfing an entire battlefield in flame.  
It got harder on Titan, the light less guardians judging them for carving their way through the hive on the platforms with only grenades and rifts.  
They ignored them and almost cried when they found a cracked talisman that still had some traces of arc energy to it.  
They kept it close on Nessus, hunting after Cayde-6 and when they finally had him out of the teleporter network and sent off to reunite with Zavala, they took it out from under their robes and felt the arc energy within it crackling, ready to be used again.  
They took their chance and went back into the EDZ, finding the shard again, hoping that the shard had yet more light to give.  
Something different than the hungry void or the fury of the solar.

The arc they found was cold and left a hole in their stomach, but it was better than the constant feeling of being burnt up.

The rest of the Red War went by in a blur, more of it spent in the trance than not, especially after they found the rest of their fireteam again and they went to take down the Almighty and retake the city with the vanguard and everyone else.  
Ghaul went down in a blaze of glorious light, a trance clearing the field, three calculated shots between his eyes and a shield into his face.  
They barely remembered the warmth that once filled them, Arc energy flowing through them.

In the peace after it, they meditated on the war, on the light, the reawakened Traveler and the song that once was in their bones.  
Nothing brought it back, the words lost to the darkness.

It was cut short however with Ikora sending them off to Mercury with Sagira, the ghost of the notorious Osiris.  
They went willingly, hoping that Osiris might know something about getting the song back, him being known as one of the greatest singers in the history of the guardians.  
In the chaos that was the events surrounding mercury, starting with Sagira involuntarily possessing their ghost, hunting Panoptes and trying to stay on top of everything, they almost forgot to ask the warlock when they did meet him.  
They were disappointed then, when they learned that Osiris had embraced the blade and that he couldn’t help them gain back the song.  
Yet, he told them to search out a warlock on the Dreadnought, a warlock between the cracks, who could surely help them.

They took the advice.  
Some would call it an act of desperation.  
Others an act of insanity.  
(Nobody knew of course. They told their fireteam that they went to dig around in the archives on Venus.)  
They just wanted to feel warm again.

The Dreadnought was quieter than it had been when they were there the last time.  
(The last time they killed a god in these halls.)  
There were barely any knights left now, and no cabal in sight.  
(Had they learned to take the light from the hive?)  
The acolytes and thralls were fighting over any bone in sight, snarling and clawing at each other.  
They payed them no mind, traversing deeper and deeper into the ship.  
There was no trace of the warlock Osiris had talked about.  
(No name had been given, but who else could it be? There was only one who could be found amongst the hive.)  
After some time, a small light joined them, flitting about and around them while they walked on.  
It was not unlike the light that had led them back during the events surrounding Oryx and his taken.  
The warlock and the light went on through the quiet ship until they reached Oryx’s throne, the warlock surprised to find that they were still ascendant enough to pass the rupture. The little light stayed close during the passage through the rupture.  
They were not in his throne world, but his actual throne room, the place where the warlock had killed the Taken King for the first time, forcing him into his throne world.  
The light floated into the middle of the room and hung in the air for a moment before it became brighter and brighter until they had to turn away and shield their eyes from it.  
When it subsided and they turned around, a specter of a warlock stood where the light had been. It was the green of hive eyes and their magicks, but without the black smears that accompanied the latter.  
The specter had its arms behind his back and appeared to be looking at them; but it was hard to tell with its helmet, or well, the ram skull it was wearing as a helmet.

_Why come back?_

The voice echoed through the room, with no definite source, seeming to come from everywhere, but the specter tilted it’s head.  
The warlock recognized the voice, it was the same one that had whispered to them in the back of their skull when they had taken on Oryx, the voice that had led them down the right path to defeat the king. The voice that had been enraged when they left after their victory.  
They did not answer.

_Why come back, after you rejected the throne?_

The voice asked again. The specter walked closer.  
“I am no god.”, the warlock replied, out loud.

_Yet you’ve killed them._

“Even mortals can kill gods. It is no feat for a guardian. But I am not here to claim a throne I do not want.”

_The vacancy has closed anyways._

“That is not good news, is it?”

_No._

The voice paused.

_Why are you here?_

“Osiris told me to find you.”

_Osiris? Still running around in his forest? What has he told you to find here?_

“A warlock that can still sing.”

_Sing? You are searching for a Sunsinger?_

“Yes.”

_Hmmh. Why do you think I could help you?_

“You were dead when Ghaul took the light. You are still dead. Maybe you still know the song?”

_You are smarter than I gave you credit for, little guardian._

“Will you help me?”

_Under one condition._

“What do you want?”

_Take me with you. Maybe they will rather listen to their savior than a mad warlock._

They considered the offer.  
What did he want to tell them? It’s teachings? A warning? That the vacancy they had created had closed? They had heard a name, first on Titan, then on Io, Sa-Va-Thûn.  
Another hive god?  
“Yes. I will take you with me.”  
They hoped they wouldn’t regret this decision, but this was what they had come here for. To regain the song, and if this was the only way…

_Good. Give me your hand._

The specter walked even closer and held out it’s hand.  
They hesitantly took it, half expecting to not be able to, seeing as it was still just made of green light, but it was solid. Warm, even, as much as they could feel it through their gloves.  
It pulled them closer and they let it.  
It was humming as it spun them both across the room, taking the lead and dancing.  
Energy built up between them, more and more until they could feel it was light, it was solar light and it was so much and glorious-  
For the first time in over a year, they were in radiance, the warm light filling them.  
The cold was gone, blown away.  
As was the green specter, they noticed, when they came down from the rush of the radiance.

_I suggest leaving now. I hope you didn’t crash your ship like the first time you came here?_

It was a bit jarring, hearing the voice – Toland’s voice – suddenly loud and clear in their head.  
They nodded and had their ghost call their jumpship.


End file.
